LIC development site to be auctioned, L+M likely to take control

A 15,000-square-foot development site at 45-46 Pearson Street in Long Island City, once the prospective home of a 20-story Robert Scarano-designed condominium, is set to hit the foreclosure auction block, according to data from PropertyShark.com.

The property, two blocks from the Scarano-designed Vere at 26-26 Jackson Avenue, is owned by investors Mark Junger and Moses Rosner and has an outstanding lien of $20.23 million, public records show. It will go up for auction June 1.

As The Real Deal previously reported, a 20-story, 120-unit condo named Tower 56 was slated for the site. Plans for the 321-foot tall building were first submitted in 2005, and a permit was issued to Junger and Rosner in 2008. The owners however, later defaulted on a mortgage secured in 2005 from Intervest Bancshares, which is headquartered at Rockefeller Center.

Development and construction giant L+M Development Partners purchased the non-performing debt on the property in April 2011, records show. The purchase price was not immediately clear. While Lisa Gomez, executive vice president of development at L+M, said the plans were as yet uncertain, Ron Moelis, CEO of L+M, told The Real Deal in October that he was planning a 180-unit 80-20 rental project at the Pearson Street site.

The company has been having some success with recent development projects. L+M’s 75-unit condo redevelopment of a circa-1905 elementary school at 220 West 148th Street in Harlem, sold out in January, and the company will soon start construction on a two-building project with 100 affordable rental units and 85 market-rate condos on 116th Street between Malcolm X Boulevard and Fifth Avenue.

Neither Scarano nor Rosner was immediately available for comment. The auction will take place at the Supreme Court at 88-71 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens.